Of course calories count and especially as one gets older.

We have to remember that as we get older we are perhaps moving less and using less calories.

Eating the same foods and quantities as we did 20 years ago results in the middle age spread.

It is though a pleasant thought that when we go to bed at night for 7 hours

we use approximately “the half of 7×60 = 210 calories.!!

I do see Tom's point.

Until a year ago I was probably overweight, although I try to follow a sensible diet. Now I have lost a lot of weight due to various circumstances and my appetite is not at all what it was.

I love small amounts of tasty food and could not face a large meal once a day as I used too.

When I am in a Mediterranean country I find it total bliss to follow their diet, including the red wine, and I think this is because their fruit and vegetables look like the real thing (no plastic covering), and the ambience surrounding eating a meal is how it should be.

I think the obesity problem in the UK is down to uneducated parents feeding their children rubbish and not insisting that the main meal of the day should be eaten at a dining table where they could supervise the content and quality of the meal.

It appalls me to see people, especially children, walking down the street, with music plugged into their ears, eating junk food, discarding the wrappers wherever, usually chewing with their mouths wide open and looking like complete degenerates.

Whoever originated the phrase “fast food” has a lot to answer for. Whoever can commercialise the phrase “slow food and time to enjoy it” might just have a winner on their hands.

But have you noticed that such people seem totally oblivious to what they're doing or the way they look